I trust that you are doing well after the horrible August we had. In one month, we had two hurricanes wreak havoc through the Caribbean, Texas and Florida, forest fires ravaged the West and Canada, an 8.1 earthquake struck Mexico, the sun launched some of the largest solar flares towards us in years, and North Korea launched a missile over Japan in its most provocative action yet. Quite an eventful month! But there is one event that happened in August that hardly got any attention, and it’s by far the most shocking, “Security firm Symantec is warning that a series of recent hacker attacks not only compromised energy companies in the US and Europe but also resulted in the intruders gaining hands-on access to power grid operations—enough control that they could have induced blackouts on American soil at will.” I have talked many times about Ted Koppel’s book “Light’s Out” because it outlines the single largest vulnerability of the USA; our electric grid. Never before in history has a nation been so completely dependent upon electricity as we are. We live in a fantastic world of automation. Food and safe water are so plentiful that we never have toRead More

On July 4th, I decided to go over to a friend’s house to watch their CRAZY fireworks display. It was enjoyable until, during one of the barrages of artillery shells, one of the shells decided to change direction – straight into my forehead. I didn’t see it coming, and it nearly knocked me out (see my picture below). A lot of people have teased me for having a smile on my face, as if I was enjoying it. I was, but quite honestly, I think that is my concussion face. I put some ice on it, and enjoyed the rest of the night. Now, I just have a small mark on my forehead. But here’s the thing, most people were not wearing safety glasses. My 17 year old son was wearing simple sunglasses at the beginning of the night (before my accident), but I told him that they weren’t good enough so I went and bought him the real things. If that would have hit me in the eye, and if I wasn’t wearing safety glasses, my eye would be gone – no ifs, ands or buts. Sun glasses are not good enough! So let’s hear your funny commentsRead More

TODAY I WANT TO address an important concern that many people have; “In an emergency, how do we help other people without putting ourselves at risk? I want to help my neighbors and my friends, but if I give them my stored water or other supplies, which I worked hard to save up, I could blow through my 30-day supply in a matter of a day or two. These are people I know and I care about, so I can’t just turn them away. Even the ones that I don’t know are good people in need. What to do?” I think this is one of the most overlooked aspects of being prepared. Yes, you can prepare yourself and your family, but the vast majority of people have not prepared, nor have they ever even thought about the need for being prepared. Let’s be honest. You don’t want to turn away your neighbors, your friends, your family, your business associates, and their young children and elderly relatives. We are hard-wired to help each other. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s what makes our society strong. And if helping others is not compelling enough, consider that your family willRead More

There is a great new NOVA documentary called Poisoned Water. I strongly recommend it. It outlines the Flint, MI water crisis, and the real state of water contamination in the USA. You can see it here. I want to point out a few things regarding the documentary… FIRST, years ago when I worked for my father’s company, we spent a lot of time trying to convince school systems of the need to have water distillers to protect their children from lead and other contaminants in the water. A number of schools knew they had high levels of lead in the water, but they really didn’t seem to care. Their solution: have the custodians go to school early and flush out the lines. In other words, just run the water down the drain for a few minutes before letting the kids drink it. Yes, it’s ridiculous. Another disturbing thing was that often the teacher’s lounge had bottled water or a treatment system so they could drink good water, but the kids just had to drink the water from the drinking fountains. SECOND, over the years I’ve noticed the knee-jerk reaction that government officials go to when faced with a problem. Deny.Read More

This is a follow up page for my presentation on Marjory’s “The Grow Network”. Recently, I did a presentation on Marjory Wildcraft’s “The Grow Network”. The presentation was called “Drinking Water Purity, Protecting Your Family from Contamination”. If you haven’t seen this presentation, please go here. In the presentation, I promised some follow up items… An Overview of the Water Contamination Crisis. My Recommendations for Protecting Your Family. An Overview of the Water Contamination Crisis: The only water that my family and I consume on a regular basis is distilled water. This is what we have done for 30 years, and it’s what we will do for the rest of our lives because I believe that the quality (purity) of water that you consume can have a significant impact on your health. It comes down to this simple question, “Do you think you have a better chance of living a long, healthy life if you avoid consuming chemicals and toxins?” If your answer is yes, then you too should drink only distilled water. First of all, what is “distilled” water? Actually, there is no such thing as “distilled water”. Water is water. The only difference between different types ofRead More

This past week I had an opportunity to attend a government conference on emergency preparedness in Atlanta, Georgia. In attendance were many local emergency response planners from across the US, as well as officials from the CDC, FEMA and other government organizations. I talked to many people and got some great insights into how prepared we are as a nation, both good and bad. Here’s what I took away from this event… GREAT PEOPLE. I was very impressed with the people I met. We have to be grateful to the highly qualified, committed people who are working in this field. They take their jobs seriously, are well trained, and are more than willing to support other areas around the country as needed. HUGE AND COMPLICATED. As a small business owner, I sometimes forget how huge our country is. Keeping the country prepared and ready for an emergency is a massively complex job; the number of government departments involved, software programs, product stockpiles, distribution challenges and tens of thousands of people. OUR GREATEST STRENGTH. We have a number of things that contribute to the preparedness of our country, from the great people, to the excellent training programs and even ourRead More

Why is it a good idea to be prepared for the unexpected? It’s my belief that, for the sake of your family, you should be prepared for the unexpected. Not out of fear, but out of an awareness that the systems that we all take for granted could fail. We live in an extremely fine-tuned, specialized and interconnected world. This is our strength and our weakness. Here’s what I mean… FINE-TUNED: Businesses have become extremely efficient. It doesn’t make sense for them to keep a lot of inventory. You’ve heard of “just-in-time” inventory? Grocery stores, for example, don’t keep much inventory on hand. For the most part, what you see on the shelves is what they have. The computers simply have the products delivered at the exact time it’s needed. This is great for the grocery store’s profitability, but if there is a problem that prevents the trucks from delivering the food, the shelves will go bare in a day or two. So what could prevent trucks from delivering the food? A cyber-attack on computer systems, a black out, earthquake, hurricane or other natural disaster, interruption to gasoline supplies, civil disruption, war, terrorism, and countless other events. SPECIALIZED: DoRead More

Today I wanted to discuss a particular type of water emergency; a “boil notice” or “boil alert notification”. These notifications happen quite often around the USA (see a recent one here). But there is a very important point that they never tell you. You need to understand what it is. First, what is a “boil alert notification”? When the water flowing to your tap contains, or is suspected to contain a biological contaminant, such as E. coli, the municipal water company will often (not always) tell you to boil the water before you consume it. Boiling the water will kill biological contaminants, thus eliminating that danger. It’s important to keep in mind that creating an infrastructure that provides us with biologically safe tap water was a HUGE step forward for public safety. And it’s something that we completely take for granted. Sometimes however, something goes wrong and biological contaminants pass through the pipes to our faucets, which puts us at risk. The largest such event to happen in recent times was the cryptosporidium outbreak that hit Milwaukee in 1993. Over 400,000 people became ill and over 100 died as a result. Biological outbreaks can be very dangerous for a fewRead More

Every once and a while someone will question one of my recommendations. Let me give you a few examples… “I don’t want to buy bottled water because plastic is bad for you.” “Why do you recommend chlorine for treating water in an emergency? It’s poisonous!” “Why not just use a UV light to purify the water? It’s easier and can do a whole gallon in a few minutes.” This is a crucial point for you to understand, WHEN AN EMERGENCY HAPPENS YOUR PRIORITIES MUST CHANGE, IMMEDIATELY! Face it, you are spoiled. So am I. We have such tremendous infrastructure and it makes our life so easy. We go through life never having to think about the safety of our water. You never have to think about basic survival. You have lived your entire lives this way, so of course you don’t think about it. But if the power goes out for an extended period of time or an earthquake strikes; if the infrastructure fails, and you aren’t able to get safe drinking water, and you’re not able to get medicine or medical assistance, your world has changed. Ready or not, you are now in survival mode, and the firstRead More

A very important point to understand about purifying water in an emergency is that you don’t have to purify all of your water to the same degree. I call this the “Hierarchy of Water Needs”. Think about the different uses for water… At the top of the list is drinking water for infants, newborns, young children, the elderly and immune compromised people. Do you remember the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee in 1993? Over 100 people died from that incident, and most of the deaths were the very young, the elderly or people with compromised immune systems. Use only the highest purity water with absolute certainty of biological protection, or in other words, use distilled water or a large name bottled water, such as SmartWater or AquaFina. Avoid other types of water if at all possible. Also at the top of the list is water for medical purposes. See the previous recommendations regarding water quality. Next, and still extremely important, is drinking water for adults. It’s very important that you protect yourself from the different types of contaminants that can be in your water. This is especially true in an emergency situation, because the infrastructure that keeps us safe canRead More

The Survival Still is not just another product. We have a powerful vision of how we are going to help the people of the world, both here and in poorer countries. In our own little way, we are going to make the world a better place, and you can help us.